Israel defaults to victimhood

Tel Aviv’s response to an attack in Jerusalem reveals its plans to exploit global extremism

Late on Sunday afternoon, a Palestinian man named Fadi Ahmad Hamdan Al Qunbar from the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Al Mukabbir drove a lorry into a group of Israeli soldiers. The uniformed, armed but off-duty soldiers were waiting at a bus stop. Four of them died before Al Qunbar was shot dead by Israeli forces. The attack is part of a wave of violence consuming Israel and Palestine that has intensified over the past year. With the peace process dead in the water and continued Israeli settlement-building across the West Bank, overt violence between Israelis and Palestinians has been bubbling to the surface for months. But with this attack, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, alleged that the driver was an ISIL sympathiser and tried to link the attack to similar vehicular attacks in Europe. By doing so, Mr Netanyahu is attempting to paint Israel as a victim of global terror without presenting any evidence.

This is nothing new for Tel Aviv’s public relations machine, but the timing is important. The international community is visibly tired of Israel’s intransigence over its occupation of Palestinian land, and this attack targeted uniformed soldiers on occupied land. This was a terrible attack but we must call it for what it was: it took place in the context of a larger conflict that is not connected to the global wave of extremism that Mr Netanyahu is trying to co-opt. Anything else minimises the war against ISIL.

The Israeli media have been able to see through Mr Netanyahu’s ploy and noted that the prime minister is in the midst of a serious corruption investigation that could result in his removal from office. Moreover, there have been several similar attacks and never before have Israeli officials blamed them on ISIL.

By playing the victim of global extremism, Mr Netanyahu hopes to raise solidarity abroad and stoke fears at home that will prove critical in diverting attention from the continued corruption case against him. Yet even the most uninformed observer can place this attack in the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has little bearing on the fight against ISIL.